16 replies to this topic

[Zakatak]

One thing I think could indirectly increase the longevity of the game is making the battlefields dynamic. No mission would be the same. What do I mean? Let me give you some examples.

In Mechwarrior 4, besides the ability to change between night and day, the maps were the same all the time, every time. The only difference between matches in CoD (or hundreds of other FPS's) is the players in the game. It bores me. So this is what I think would REALLY make the game awesome.

• Each planet has it's own solar day (24 hours for Terra, but 30 hours for Tharkad for example) and the time-of-day is recorded in real-time for each planet. If I land on Tharkad at 14:30am, it will be sunny outside. If I stay there another 15 hours, it will be midnight.
  
• When going on a mission with your lance, you may get a misdrop, which will land your lance somewhere random on the map, and this could be for better or for worse.
  
• You are given limited intel, and the mission will change dynamically. You may have no idea that Xerxes bombers are going to carpet bomb the landscape, so you must adapt.
  
• Smoke from explosions doesn't just disappear. The more weaponry flung around, the thicker the fog of war gets. In terms of development, give weapons a value (example, Longtom a 10) and this value determines how much it will thicken the fog. The fog will decrease at X rate per Y seconds.
  
• Temperature of the planets, and regions of those planets determines heat sink efficiency. Let's say 100% efficiency is 20 degrees Celsius. If the temperature on Halloran V is 0 celsius, that is 120% efficiency. If the temperature on Eaton is 40 celsius, that is 80% efficiency. Got it?
  
• WEATHER EFFECTS. Snow, rain, tornadoes, so on and so forth. Sometimes it may be a clear sky-blue day. But occasionally you might get a short snowstorm so thick that you can't even see 50m in front of you, and you must rely entirely on sensors.

You don't need to go this overkill, but I think this would make things a HELL of alot more interesting, don't you? If it takes 2 weeks of development time to make something like this, it's plenty worth it.

Edited by Zakatak, 13 November 2011 - 10:47 AM.

[God of War]

it´s a nice idea for a time when the game ist runnig as intended. but now i would prefer to invest time on subjects like balance, gameplay, community ect....

[3Ravens]

Not sure how doable those ideas are in the timeframe the devs have but hell yes I'd love to see those implemented (although thinking of what it might do to required computer specs makes me cringe).

[GreenHell]

Destructibles please. Do building collapse in a convincing manner. Not "Boom, dust, generic looking pile of rubble......"

[Nik Van Rhijn]

Like Godd of War I think that this is the way to go when the game is up, running and successful.

[Andrew Harvey]

I think they already mentioned that they'd be having environments that affected heat sink efficiency. The rest are really interesting ideas, and would add a lot to the game's environments. Playing through a series of missions on the same planet would really show a player the impact war has on a world. However, as interesting as that sounds, I'm sure they're going to be focused on developing the more central parts of gameplay first.

[Zakatak]

Considering that there is no singleplayer (which requires ALOT of resources), they should be able to find the time to implement these things.

I figure for the time of day thing, they could simply just make another half-sphere for the skybox, and have it turns very slowly as time goes by (although it would have to change color to simulate sunrise and sundown).

I remember playing MWLL, there was one map on an asteroid. It would rotate once every 30 minutes. When the asteroid was facing the sun, heat efficiency went down a good 50%. When the asteroid turned away from the sun, water would snap-freeze to ice and heat sink efficiency went up drastically.

[TheRulesLawyer]

I wouldn't mind a day/night cycle, weather, etc
However some of these things would affect match balance drastically, and not evenly. That's not a great thing for a multi-player game.

[Redtail]

I'm not arguing, please don't read into this that way. I would like to know how the day/night cycle and weather would unbalance gameplay, because I'm trying to figure out for myself.

[TheRulesLawyer]

Redtail, on 14 November 2011 - 09:20 AM, said:

I'm not arguing, please don't read into this that way. I would like to know how the day/night cycle and weather would unbalance gameplay, because I'm trying to figure out for myself.

The weather, day/night cycles, destruction, etc are things I think would be great.

The random drops and limited item with dynamic mission changes are the things I was concerned about. Basically as long as it affects both sides equally, I'm cool with it. Its the stuff that could make you have lost the battle before it starts that worries me.

[fuguzawaz]

The dynamic enviroments would give a new meaning to "being prepared". If you are going to lose a battle because its snowing, you should have been better prepared. Like real life. Im digging the dynamic weather.

[Silent]

TheRulesLawyer, on 14 November 2011 - 09:56 AM, said:

The weather, day/night cycles, destruction, etc are things I think would be great.

The random drops and limited item with dynamic mission changes are the things I was concerned about. Basically as long as it affects both sides equally, I'm cool with it. Its the stuff that could make you have lost the battle before it starts that worries me.

This is how I feel. Day/night cycles and different weather conditions are cool, but being at a serious disadvantage because of a dice roll isn't.

Edited by Silent, 14 November 2011 - 11:54 AM.

[MaddMaxx]

There are tons of environmental conditions that could be added (over time). Like the magnetic poles on Maleren IV are very wonky. Where everyone assembles things seem fine but as both Teams hit the conflict area, the electronics suites on all scouts go out, verbal comm's go down but the Mission still has to be completed. Where is your Wing-man.

The beauty of this games format, Online with persistence should allow us to see and experience way more environments than any SP game could offer.

[Target Rich]

When in doubt...look at Chromehounds...which was modeled on the MW5 concept. Chromehounds had 3 nations...covering an entire globe with over 100 separate battle sectors....each sector had 3 maps.....each of those maps was over 60 miles wide... As a unit you would be part of one of the three nations....and your rankings were based on each battle you won. As all the units and all the battles progressed...each nation would gain territory and resources...totally dynamic...and eventually one nation would win the big one and the mega game would reset and we would start over.... Normal macro game would take a month or two..and was obsessively immersive.

That is EXACTLY what MW5 was all to be about...they just substituted different names for the units....and the three nation names for the Clan/InnerSphere/Freehold concept in battletech...

So you don't have to reinvent what has already been modeled....you can use that great foundation and make the music happen!

[Neolisk]

Also add dynamic obstacles, blocking known paths at random, to do smth about that boring submarine on forest colony, where the fight ends up in trench wars on each side of it.

[Werewolf486 ScorpS]

I like the idea, but how do you justify it with 15 minute drops?

They place one planet on one server and that server maintains a clock on that planet? That way when you drop you have different conditions, time of day, and locations on the same planet?

I think this alone would KILL the dev team and destroy servers! Even if I like the idea, I'm not sure it's possible.

[Neolisk]

Werewolf486, on 07 April 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

They place one planet on one server and that server maintains a clock on that planet?
I think this alone would KILL the dev team and destroy servers! Even if I like the idea, I'm not sure it's possible.

As far as I understand it, a match takes place on an instance of a planet called a level. Every level can be unique, since the server already keeps different mech locations for it. So it's just another parameter to juggle with.